Category: Journal

• There are days when I wish I had more than one choice for internet in my neighborhood. Cox is the de facto monopoly here, and I have to play their game since I work from home. Lately, my connection keeps dropping several times a day. While it is a nuisance for me, it is a real problem for She Who Must Be Obeyed. She takes calls in her position, and dropping calls on the regular is Not Optimal™. Calling Cox Tech Support is a totally different level of fuckery. I have to admit that because I have worked for over 10 years at call centers that are all US based, I have to reign in my inner Chad when it comes to offshore support. Because I’ve taken calls, I try to treat people with the respect I would appreciate if I were on the phones, but when it becomes obvious that they are less interested in helping me fix my problem, and more interested in upselling me, I check out. I ended up calling my local Cox Retail store and turns out my router was the problem. OK, I drive down there and get a new router, and while I’m there, the rep says he can cut my bill by 50 bucks. He took care of that, I got the new router hooked up and updated all the devices with the new network, and we haven’t dropped since 11am this morning. It occurs to me that this happens every three years or so, and it doesn’t matter if I use their router or I use another one. Looks like it’s fixed for now.
• There’s a new app called Bless Every Home, and according to this article from The New Republic, it maps neighborhoods and collects data on who needs a visit from your local Happy Young Christians ™. Remember, it’s the Chinese we’re supposed to be worried about with the data thing.
• Lara the Pop Idol would like you to know that they don’t just have poll watchers, but they have folks that can physically handle the ballots. She also would like you to know that they have lawsuits in 81 states right now. Lara the Pop Idol is full of shit.
• Can’t remember who said it, but I read someone today they said if they announced an iPad Mini Pro, it would take them less than 45 seconds to order it. That reminds me, I would LOVE an iPad Mini. Just to use as a consumption device, like books, the crossword, social scrolling, what few games I play (poker, and poker.) A new Mini is like 600 right now. I saw Mini 5’s 64 GB for 250 somewhere, and lost it. Later. Much later. I’m in create mode now, and not just the stories. I’m working on the house little by little, and that’s where the money is going right now. How much money? All of it. ALL OF IT.

That’s it for today. Your regular (daily? Maybe not) Oreo.

• Today was the second day of testimony in the Trump ‘Hush Money’ case, and I a now certain of three things:
  • David Pecker was called up first for a reason, and that reason is to back up what Cohen says in his testimony. It’s a ‘pre-buttal’, if you like. Cohen’s credibility will certainly be questioned, and this is meant to corroborate his testimony. Of course, IANAL and all that.
  • I will be snickering to myself every time I hear ‘Pecker’ because I am 14 years old.
  • I cannot help but hear Idris Elba as Stringer Bell in The Wire. “Is you taking notes on a criminal conspiracy?” Go look it up on YT if you want the explicit version.
• I’m a little hazy on which groups of people it’s ok to slaughter.
• Elvis, Weed, Heavy Metal, Explicit Lyrics, Hip Hop, Video Games, and TikTok. What a nice little herd of scapegoats. There might be one difference with that last one: they might be scared of TikTok. Not because of China, that’s bullshit. Many TikTok creators actively took on the misinformation and disinformation about COVID during the lockdown. Some creators were able to get some of those people thrown off the platform and shunned in society, and some were even arrested. I remember one person who was able to get their hands on blank immunization cards and for a fee, would sign off on an immunization that was never given. The TikTok ban is about one thing, and that’s payback. When they realized they didn’t have the votes to pass it as a standalone bill, they tucked it into a so-called ‘must pass’ bill. So, we’ll see. I’m watching the Senate debate of this bill on C-Span, and there are some No votes after all. This will be interesting.
• Looks like we might be getting new iPad/iPad Pros next month, Apple’s announced an event on 5/7. I’ve had an 11 inch iPad Pro since 2018, and it’s been a really great thing to take with me to work on writing on the go. That said, I think it’s time to accept that what I really want is a MacBook Pro. I bought the wife a 13 inch MBP in 2021, and I think it would be nice to be able to edit audio and video on the go. I’ve given up hope that Adobe will make a version of Audition or Premiere Pro for the iPad Pro, and I the iPad version of Final Cut Pro is not compatible with my machine. I think what I need is a MBP and an external hard drive to work from, so I can also edit from the iMac.

That’s all for now. Herself would like me to take a break and pay her some attention. You now how it is.

• Did you happen to see DJT’s rant today? Unbelievable. I want you to keep in mind that this is only Day 1 of the trial. This is going to get so much more unhinged you won’t believe it, but it’s perfectly understandable once you accept the fact that the man has NPD combined with a clear mental decline. For the first time he finds himself not in control, and the lashing out is his attempt to compensate. However, he’s got no self-control, which is why he vomited his ever increasing list of grievances. Of course, he’s innocent. Everyone else is to blame.
• Share this with your older family members or the technically challenged: Not all search results are equal, and some are downright nefarious. I was reminded of this yesterday when I read about a man who was trying to fix his printer, so he searched for [Printer] Tech Support. The top of the page were sponsored ads. He called one that tried to have him run something in the Command Prompt for Windows, and tried to charge him 750 dollars to fix everything. Of course these are scammers. Please share this.
• Started watching Manhunt on Apple TV. If you like historical fiction, this is pretty good. Patton Oswalt is a pleasant surprise, and in Episode 3 you may find Confederacy Karen. Worth the watch.

• I’ve completed 9 episodes of The Pungoverse, which will complete what am envision will be a first season. I’ve decided that these will be vertical videos, which will require me to create visual reps of the Pungonians. I don’t think I’ll be using filters for the most part, with the exception of one character. I’m looking to start filming next weekend. I don’t have an ETA to release, but I’ve shed the guilt of having to do things on any kind of timeline. These will happen when they happen.
• No one fucking warned me about X-Men ‘97. I love it, but you ripped my damn heart out.
• The cyberpunk story is about two episodes in. I have no idea where it’s going. I can tell you it’s called TSUNAMI, and it’s based off an idea I had around 1999. Some elements of this story have been transferred from another story I wrote in 1988, specifically the main character’s assistant. The story is in the first person, and I hope to produce this with music and sound effects, rather than an audio book narration. It’s been a tough slog because while the basic idea has been in my head, the direction isn’t something I’ve given thought to until I started writing. I was splitting time between this and the Pungoverse until I realized that I couldn’t switch tasks like that. Now that Pungoverse is written, I will resume this after I complete and schedule the releases.
• I’ve listened to The Tortured Poets Department three times now. I’m not a diehard Taylor fan, but I do like her later pop synth stuff. Here’s my take on the album: She has said that this is a dark chapter in her life that she’s closed with this album, so I don’t think it’s out of bounds to call this a concept album. It’s The Wall (Taylor’s Version), and of course I’m going to listen to something like that. If you’re looking for banger after banger, this isn’t it. This is a songwriter telling you her story the same way Billy Joel, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon told you about their lives. It’s a good album.
• After the week that was, I feel like this would be an excellent time to repeat that if you’re forming your opinions from second hand information, you may be getting the wrong info. Never trust hearsay, sources that have a clear bias, or anything online that doesn’t have attribution that you can verify. That’s going to be very important for the remainder of this year.

I’m going to try and get back to daily posts. No promises. And of course, here be the supermodel

Yes, I know, it’s been a minute. Several. Welcome to the world of object permanence, where I forget it exists if it’s not right in front of my face. That said, let’s fill you in on where things are.

Over the past little while, I seem to have made a breakthrough when it comes to my life since 2020. Aside from the fact that 4 years is long enough to be anything, much less sad, I lit upon what I think is an inconvenient truth I had to face: There was a point where the writing was on the wall that I was going to be let go from my job, COVID or no COVID. There were yearly layoffs back then, and I had dodged two rounds. My job had been relegated to rewriting and voicing English versions of Japanese scripts with little to no variation between printer models. I was editing already-produced videos of illustrations with little to no variation either. I wasn’t creating anything new, I was reheating the leftovers. In a sense, I was set up to fail. Once I got to that realization, I realized that it didn’t give much of a base to qualify for a job in the field beyond that. So, if I wanted to do something creative with video, it’s up to me to do that on my own. TikTok is nice and all, and it’s quick and dirty, but I think I need to do something a little more substantial. Now, I’m no Casey Neistat. I’m just some guy with a camera that thought he was a multimedia guy until he realized he wasn’t. So maybe I should do something about that.

In other news, some progress updates:

The new Pungoverse season seems to be going a bit better, I’ve written two episodes so far. The premise is very simple. WYRD 101 has lost its broadcasting license due to a huge mistake. If you’ve been a fan of WYRD 101 over the years then this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Roley’s talent agent takes on the whole crew and suggests a pivot to all podcasting. This sets up a little bit of a satire of the current state of podcasting, and what I see as the homogenization of the industry. I also hope to revisit some long lost citizens of Pungo that I haven’t used in a long, long time.

The other project I’ve been working on is Tsunami. I’ve finished one chapter, and halfway through a second one. Tsunami is my attempt at a cyberpunk story, and I hope I can do the genre a little bit of justice since I’ve been a fan of it for so long. The main character is a Tracker of sorts, and falls into a little bit of a mystery involving augmented humans. It’s in the first person, and the main character is in the vein of the sarcastic type of detective I grew up being fascinated by, from Richard Diamond Private Detective, to Thomas Magnum.

Podcasting? Well, that’s what these two things are for. It’s possible I’ll serve something up soon, though I am not going to head back to the same old current events pod. It’s boring, and I really don’t want to think about the timeline we’re living in right now, or I’ll get nothing done.

I have two other ideas in the bucket at the moment, but they’re not fully formed thoughts yet. In other words, just like any other random thought in my head at any given moment. Update next time on that, hopefully.

See ya next time.